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H&M has really cute tube tops on sale 2 for $10. Perfect with a pencil skirt, circle skirt, or your favorite jeans and some cute shoes.

They have a built-in shelf bra, which is probably enough for small-busted ladies. For the more amply endowed, it’s a safety layer for when your strapless bra slides down, so you’re a bit less visibly nipply.

Super versatile. And for $5? I will not feel guilty when I spill something on this vast landscape of whiteness.

I’ve been busy. Working, playing roller derby for a while, nursing a broken ankle, starting a new blog dedicated to my pagan journey… all kinds of random things that were not blogging here.

And now, I’m having a meltdown over public speaking.

In a few weeks, I’m speaking at a conference in Vegas. This wouldn’t be a big deal, except that I hate public speaking. A while ago I decided that this would be the year I pushed myself to do some things that I don’t love in an effort to grow/build character/that sort of thing. Ok. Fine. Public speaking. I’ve got this.

Except… I broke my ankle. Which doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with the matter, but hear me out.

I did get this lovely dress from Heart of Haute, and I do have flats that will work with it.

I have amassed a wardrobe that helps me feel confident and professional and completely me. It’s part of my armor when I’m on the road. Fun dresses. Classic pencil skirts with pretty blouses and awesome heels. Funky vintage bags.

Wait.

Awesome heels and a fractured ankle do not go together. And I HATE flat shoes. Especially with pencil skirts. Ugh. So, now I am freaking out over what to wear at this thing. Never mind the need for layers, because conferences are notorious for unpredictable temperatures – when a room fills up with people, it gets warm, when they file out at the end of the session, you freeze. And it’s Vegas, so I will be walking all over the place, which the ankle is going to LOVE.

Cue the quest for something retro-flavored, modern marketing professional, and not hideous with flats. I found navy blue linen-y pants. And shoes I don’t completely hate. And I have a few blouses that work with the pants so I can come up with a kind of forties nautical thing. Now I’m in search of that elusive top layer.

What happens when I go for acupuncture: I walk in and get greeted warmly by the receptionist, who tells me to go right on in. I wait less than 5 minutes for an acupuncturist, who asks me what’s wrong, inserts needles, wraps me in blankets and gets me more tea.

What happens when I call my doctor’s office for treatment: They tell me there are no more appointments available that day, I should go to urgent care. I go to urgent care, where the wait is over 75 minutes. I go home because sitting in a room full of sick people for over an hour is not going to help me.

I call back to see if I can get an appointment for tomorrow. Yes. Great. I go to the appointment the next day, where I have to spend 20 minutes at the check-in desk going through insurance updates and questions that result in receptionists yelling at me to wear a mask. Mask triggers deep-seated trauma around having ears grabbed during a rape, so I start crying. Wait 15 minutes to see doctor, who immediately calls in two prescriptions and says she will call in a third depending on the results of my X-ray and flu test results. I get the X-ray. Pharmacy sends note saying they have filled one of my prescriptions. I decide to wait to get them until the next morning, when they will probably have the other ones filled as well. Doctor calls to tell me I do not have the flu.

Next morning: Go to pharmacy to get prescription, ask about the other drugs. Cough meds on backorder, no third prescription yet. Pharmacist suggests I ask for a different cough meds, then tells me that all the alternatives are also backordered, so, not really sure what to do.

I go home and discover I have almost a full bottle of the backordered meds left over from last year’s bronchitis. As I pop one, I wonder why I didn’t take them all last year. An hour later when I am shaky, sleepy, and still coughing, I remember. Call doctor’s office to check on x-ray results. Leave message asking for callback, get no response.

Call doctor’s office again today, hold for 15 minutes while listening to a recording telling me that Dartmouth-Hitchcock is concerned about providing excellent, efficient care. Try not to sent psychic hate vibes to person spewing this hypocrisy. Still can’t get an answer on what’s going on with the prescription that was supposed to come based on the results of the X-ray I had two days ago.

Once upon a time, I played roller derby. Ok, so, that time was from November 2007 to July 2010, under the alter ego Hazel Smut Crunch, number 350. (Actually, I played pretty much all the time, if you want to get precise. I ate, drank, breathed and slept derby.*)

Roller derby was a wonderful and terrible experience for me.

The wonderful: physically, I was in the best shape of my life. I stepped up to take on all kinds of administrative stuff, which proved to me that I could handle a job that was more challenging and fulfilling (and better paying) than the one I had at the time. Ultimately, my derby experience helped me get a new, better job – which is a totally different story for another day.

The terrible: part of me was desperately concerned with fitting in. And I had no sense of how to balance derby with all the other things that I enjoyed doing, like reading and cooking and knitting and hanging out with people who didn’t play derby. I made a bunch of choices that were not really in character for Jenn Waltner, but were totally in character for Hazel Smut Crunch, who in retrospect, I can see was a bitch.

Fast forward four and a half years. I have changed jobs several times, gained weight, gotten older, added a tattoo, developed a much stronger relationship with my husband, and gotten a much clearer sense of my own identity in the healthiest way possible. I’ve reached a point where I can make the choices that are right for me while respecting and considering other people, but not needing their approval. I am comfortable and confident in my own skin in ways that I wasn’t before. And it’s liberating as hell.

A while ago, I thought about going back to derby. Sent some emails/feelers out there. Tim was cool with it. And then I woke up in the middle of the night bawling my face off because I was such a bitch to him last time. (Really: the ENTIRE time I played derby, I was awful to him and can’t believe he wanted to stay married to me, but I’m really fucking grateful that he did.) He hugged me and told me it was ok, do whatever felt right for me.

Clearly, I wasn’t ready to skate again.

Now, somehow, I am. Rec league, because hell, I haven’t taken a hit since July 2010 and have no idea if I can do 27 laps in 5 minutes. Plus I travel for work a fair amount and can’t commit to practicing all the freaking time. And I want balance. I’m not willing to sacrifice those other things that are important to me this time around.

There are a bunch of things that will be different this time around:

A new name. One that more closely reflects who I am and what I do outside of derby. Something that’s actually been a nickname since before I started skating… incorporates my real name, language geekiness, and my career, in a subtle way. New number, too – that keeps part of my old number, but thematically ties in with the new name and incorporates a music reference, because that’s also important to me. (Not posting it here yet because I have no freaking clue how the name requirements/conventions have changed in my absence and I want to wait until I know I’m good to share it.)

BALANCE. I will not let the derby monster consume me. I will participate in other activities I enjoy. I will not subject my friends and family who aren’t interested in derby to incessant derby talk / blog posts / facebook updates. I will not sacrifice my identity and relationships to roller derby. Enough said.

New skates, because NEW SKATES. Custom. Blue suede, in honor of my love for Carl Perkins and all things with awesome textures. From Bruised Boutique, because Dee Stortion and Bad Ass Mama and I all started together and they rock.

I have gotten better at a bunch of stuff, like turning toe stops and jumping. And saying no to overloading myself. I am just going to skate. Nothing else.

There are also things that will not be different:

I will push myself to do the hard things, the scary things, the things that seem just out of reach, until I nail that shit.

I am no less obsessed with wheels and sparkly things.

I will still wear lipstick to practice, because I wear lipstick every time I leave the house. It’s my personal version of war paint.

I will still seek out the new skaters who are struggling and think they can’t do this and let them know that I have faith in them. Because when I started, I had to skate into walls to stop. I fell and smashed the back of my head at one of NHRD’s first practices when I was standing still and not even trying to do anything on skates (which is why the rules now require everyone to wear helmets at practice AT ALL TIMES… true story). I failed the assessment to be eligible for scrimmaging the first time I tried. When I finally made a team, I sat on the bench most of my first season because I was the weakest skater and the most likely to get penalties. And I worked my ass off and got better.

I’m ready. Let the derby rebirth begin.

* No lie: I’d practice at LEAST 3 nights a week for 3 hours a pop, not including travel time and post-practice shower. I was also a team captain, so I was coming up with drills and line-ups with my amazing co-captain for our team practices which took up another few hours every week; I was on the board of directors, chair of the bout production committee, webmaster, and was trying to abandon being treasurer but kept winding up having to go to the freaking bank because I was on the account and no one else wanted to deal with it. Plus I was doing travel team, so at least one weekend a month, I was away. Oh, and I blogged about derby, too, posting at least twice a week. I think Tim and I calculated that I was spending an AVERAGE of 30 hours a week doing derby stuff. And working full-time. Never again.

Imagine how wonderful it must have been to receive this vintage Christmas gift set with Irresistible perfume, powder, and skin freshener all in a beautiful box. Such gorgeous artwork!

Lovely packaging.

The set contains body and face powder, perfume, and a cleanser.

The back of the powder box.

I was able to find some ads online that confirmed my sense that this was from the 1930s… and also learned that Zoe Mozert created the artwork. The illustration resembles her drawings of Jean Harlow. No wonder it’s so gorgeous!

Now that my new desk is done, I’m starting to think about how I want to make over my old desk into a vanity. I’ve been scouring Pinterest for inspiration.

The old desk/new vanity came into my possession in 2003. My first mother-in-law gave it to me; she bought it at a yard sale in Colorado in 1968 or ’69 and painted it green. I replaced the hardware about five years ago because I wasn’t in love with the bronze drawer pulls.

Here’s the current set-up:

It’s in the location where it will live permanently, but that’s about the only thing permanent about this situation. Except maybe the cushion underneath, because the cats like to hang out there.

The old desk has great lines that lend themselves well to a two-tone paint job. I’m thinking a pale gray, with deep zinc or silvery accents… And a matching darker frame for the mirror. While I have old rectangular mirrors left over from the downstairs bathroom renovation, I’m not completely sold on those. As you can see, they’re in somewhat rough shape. Debating round or oval instead, which would also work better with the odd ceiling shape in that part of the room.

Some of my needles. Many of these were gifts from long-time knitters, duplicates they wound up with through the years.

And then I started a new job that turned out to be a lot more taxing than I thought it would be, which left me without the focus and concentration required for the things I like to knit: cables, lace, ribbing, circular stuff that requires a fair amount of counting. Sad.

Especially since I have a good-sized yarn stash and collection of needles. Plus I finally gave myself permission to frog some unfulfilling previous work… A hat I started during my first marriage. A glorious plum alpaca tank top in a difficult ribbing pattern that didn’t fit. A scarf that just… yuck.

Now I’m at a different job. And I have the focus (and free time) to knit again. I’ve also had a few of my favorite ladies express an interest in learning to knit, which makes me all warm and fuzzy and amped up to get them started.

I’m currently cranking away on a pair of fingerless gloves:

Fetching, a free pattern from knitty.com.

I’ve also commissioned my friend Carole to sew a knitting needle organizer for me – I sent her cute fabric and a sketch… I can’t wait to see what she sends back. I’m all kinds of fired up to knit more gloves and such.